


A Running Dialog

by Weevilo707



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Letters, Multi, Mutual Pining, Sibling Bonding, guys there's a lot in this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:14:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22189978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: Taako's life is looking up. He's got a great new job at a bakery, and a shitty apartment and... well, he's got those two things at least. The point is it's a start, and he's going to make the most of it. He's gonna make it big someday, it's just a matter of time. Annoying neighbors and nosy kids and handsome co-workers are all secondary.The phone in his pocket that never responds is more important than all of that.-Lup is making something of herself, or at least that's what people say you're doing when you go off to a fancy college. What it feels like she's making is a mess, but that's beside the point. She's also making friends, and making it work, and making some damn good grades. She's got it under control, even if sometimes it feels like the world turns to static around her.The letters she writes keep her grounded in that static, even if they never reach their intended audience.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 118
Kudos: 282





	1. First Days

Taako was actually grinning as he dropped the last box into his exceptionally shitty new apartment. It was run down and not on a great side of the neighborhood and the hallway outside of his apartment smelled distinctly of not all that great kush, but it was  _ his. _

As soon as the door shut behind him he went over to the couch that came with the place and flopped down face first. As soon as he did he grimaced, quickly rolling onto his back and making a mental note to get a new couch with his first paycheck. And a new bed. And some dishes and dish soap for the dishes once he had them.

Okay, there was a lot of stuff he needed to get on his first paycheck. And his second. And basically capitalism was a never-ending pit that Taako wasn’t super thrilled about being thrust into, but he could make it work. He was figuring this out, and shitty apartment or not, it sure as fuck beat the streets.

There was a long moment where he lay there, staring up at the ceiling. There were stains up there, but he couldn’t quite make anything out of the shapes of them yet. Eventually he got tired of trying and sighed, pulling out his phone.

There were only two contacts in, and one of them was for the new job. He ignored that one for now, going to send a text to the other.

_ Hey lup _

_ Finally moved into the new place. You won’t believe how fucking shitty it is, but hey rent’s cheap as hell. _

_ Already told you that I’m starting the bakery job on monday, I’ll let you know how that goes once it actually happens. It’ll be sweet as fuck though having a job that’ll let me cook. _

_ I need to get some furniture for this place. I’ll send you some pics once its a little less sad looking. If that actually happens. _

_ … _

_ I miss you lulu. _

There wasn’t any response, just like there wasn’t ever any response. It was probably stupid of him to keep texting this number. She clearly didn’t have it anymore. If she ever  _ actually _ had it in the first place. No one did now for sure, or else he would have gotten some complaints by now. He was just sending a running dialog of his life to no one and pretending that there was some possibility his sister would see it and get back to him.

It was pointless, but there was no way he could bring himself to actually stop.

Before he could do anything else he quickly put his phone away. Almost as soon as it was in his pocket it buzzed, and Taako felt his heart leap out of his chest as he scrambled to pull it back out and see who it was. He told himself he was wrong, there was no way it was… but he’d  _ just _ been texting her, maybe…

It was Ren, sending him his official schedule for next week and wishing him good luck on his first day. It was good, and Taako tried to ignore the way his heart had plummeted again. It was fucking stupid to hope that out of the blue after all the time she would just  _ respond. _

After laying on the couch for way too long Taako finally forced himself to get up. He told himself that he deserved the extra long break, he had to enjoy them while he could since he was about to jump head first into a full time job. Plus, he’d spent all morning moving. If he wanted to spend several hours staring up at the ceiling and slowly starting to interpret the splotches into designs, he could.

Eventually though he got too hungry to keep lying there definitely not wallowing, and he forced himself to get up and head over to the kitchen. It was as shitty and small as the rest of the apartment, but Taako had been sure to check that everything actually  _ worked _ before deciding on this one. He could make due with a bad kitchen, and he could make due with broken appliances if he had to, but he sure as fuck didn’t want to.

He wasn’t exactly feeling up to making anything super fancy tonight though. Instead he just ended up making some cheap pasta. A lot of it, so that he would have more for later and wouldn’t have to cook again today if he didn’t want to.

Taako told himself this was nice. This was his own place, and he’d worked for it all on his own, and it was only the first stepping stone. In a year when the lease was up he’d have enough saved up to go somewhere better. Maybe in a few more he’d be able to open up his own place instead of having to work at someone else’s. Someday soon he would be able to have his own restaurant, and he would make a name for himself. Soon, everyone would know exactly who  _ Taako _ is.

And maybe then he could finally find Lup. If she saw him on TV or something maybe it would be enough and she would be able to find  _ him.  _ He told himself that she had to still be looking too. It’d been years, but there was no way she would have given up either. They’d just been unlucky so far. Soon enough something had to give.

Taako had been kind of worried that the apartment would be too quiet. That he would get bored and lonely there on his own, even though that had never been a problem before. Usually he could not get enough alone time no matter how much he tried.

The good news was, he definitely didn’t have to worry about it being too quiet. Within his first few days there Taako had gotten a pretty good idea of most of the apartments around his own. The couple upstairs were always fighting, that or what sounded like very angry vacuuming. The old man next door listened to his TV way too fucking loud, Taako could clearly make out exactly what episode of Storage Wars he was on. He fucking swore the kids who lived below him had a goddamn garage band or some shit they were setting up. Not a very good one either, in Taako’s personal opinion. That, or they were hobby construction workers with surprising accidental melody.

So yeah, definitely not too quiet. It was certainly frustrating, but Taako bought himself some ear plugs to sleep and told himself he could deal with the rest. He was only gonna be here for a year at most. The good news was this building definitely didn’t seem to be the type where the neighbors tried to get all chummy with you. So far he’d barely seen another person in the apartment, and the ones he did happen upon in the hallways seemed perfectly content to not make eye contact and go about with their days.

Taako was pretty thankful that the next few days ended up going at a decently fast pace. Before he knew it his alarm was going off way too goddamn early to signal it was time for him to get to work. It was a little bit earlier than he actually had to wake up, but he figured it was best to be safe on his first day. He really fucking needed this job, he was not about to blow it right out of the gate.

He did his best to make himself both presentable and professional. Taako knew the place had aprons, but they were allowed to wear whatever they wanted as long as it was appropriate for cooking underneath. He put on a pretty simple purple button up short sleeve shirt and black slacks. A bit more subdued from his normal fashion sense, but decent for a real person job. He put his long hair into a braid, twisting it up into a bun afterwards to make sure it was fully out of the way for cooking.

Giving himself a look over in the mirror, he nodded and figured it was good enough. He could spend hours trying to fuss and make everything perfect, but he didn’t have time for that.

Grabbing his phone off the counter, Taako intended to just shove it in his pocket and go gather the last of his stuff to leave. He paused beforehand though, debating for half a second before giving in. Taking a quick selfie, he sent the image to the contact he had for Lup with a short message.

_ First day at work, you better fucking wish me luck. _

He didn’t wait to see if there would be any response. Even still, he found himself pulling the phone back out of his pocket as he left the apartment. He wasn’t surprised to find there was nothing. He couldn’t even bring himself to be disappointed anymore. It was just a fact. Lup hadn’t responded.

Taako swore he’d tried to leave early. He did leave early. Even still he felt panicked as he ran to catch his bus. Then he felt panicked as he bus slowly made its way through the city, each stop feeling like it was taking a million goddamn years. He kept checking his phone, and he knew he had the time, he made sure he’d have the time for all of this bullshit, but it still felt like he didn’t.

After what felt like an eternity it finally came to his stop, and it was only a two block walk from there to the bakery. Taako might have sprinted most of the way there, but he’d been right. He wasn’t late, he had twelve minutes before his shift actually started. He could probably relax a little bit in the coming days, but at the very least he knew it was possible for him to get here early now and that he didn’t have to kill himself trying to get a car so he wouldn’t have to rely on the bus.

He didn’t stand around waiting outside, even though he had the extra time. Maybe once he had been here for a while he could start looking around at some of the other places. See if there was anywhere around here that had some good coffee for breakfast or something. It felt pointless looking for other breakfast things, since he was literally working at a bakery. The best breakfast stuff was going to be  _ here _ from now on, now that they had hired Taako.

Today though, he headed straight in. He didn’t typically give that much of a shit about being early, but he was not about to lose this job as soon as he got it. The bell above the door jangled as he came in and there weren’t any customers inside yet. Technically they didn’t open for another half hour or so. He wasn’t alone though, Ren looking up and smiling at him at the sound of the bell.

“Taako! Morning, you ready for your first day?” she asked, sounding way too peppy for this early in the morning. Still, Taako forced himself to smile, moving to go join her behind the counter.

“That’s why I’m here. Just tell me where to start and point me in the right direction,” he said. There were aprons hanging behind the counter, and Taako grabbed one, tying it around his waist. Ren seemed to approve, moving to wash her hands as she nodded at his apparent enthusiasm.

“You got it. It’s your first day, so congrats! I’m  _ not _ gonna make you work the register,” she said, and Taako tried not to let it show how much that was actually kind of a relief. He was good at math, he just hated having to do it. Also, he didn’t get hired here to do math, he wanted to be able to cook.

“Sounds good, sounds good,” he said, following Ren as she started towards the back of the bakery.

“I’m gonna have to teach you how to use it eventually of course, but it’s not urgent right now. I figured today you can help with the baking and dishes when it’s slow,” she said. It sounded good enough to Taako, and he nodded, a big grin on his face.

“That’s the shit I’m good at, lemme at it,” he said. Ren chuckled a little but didn’t disagree, going to start showing him a few of the recipes and where everything was in the kitchen. He didn’t have a lot of time to learn. She went over the recipes with him once, pointed out the supplies, and said she trusted him to do a great job. Then she had to get back up front to finish setting up everything else before the doors opened.

With that, Taako was left alone in the back of the bakery. There was a short moment where he stood there, staring down at all of the supplies in front of him while his brain tried to catch up with the situation at hand. It all felt like it was moving real fast, even though this was probably a relatively normal pace.

He only let himself stay there for a few seconds though, before taking in a deep breath and starting to move. Immediately he grabbed out bags of flour and fruit and everything else he needed, starting to portion the ingredients into bowls and such. He wasn’t lying before, this was what he was good at. It didn’t take long before he started to get into a groove, rolling out dough and cutting it into strips and pockets and filling it with the correct fillings. He wasn’t moving as fast as he could, because he wanted to be sure these came out  _ perfect _ for his first try.

This was going to be good. He was going to  _ make it _ good.

——

Fuck fuck  _ fuck _ this wasn’t good.

Lup cursed under her breath as she tore apart her dorm room. The only thing good about this situation was that she had decided to shell out for the single dorm. So she didn’t have to worry about any roommates coming back later and getting pissed at the disaster zone. It was kind of hard to focus on that though, trying to figure out where the  _ hell _ she’d put her textbook.

She was already late for class, and this was not how she wanted to start off her whole college career. Later on, when she was more firmly established and everyone knew exactly what she was capable of,  _ then _ she would be chill to roll into class twenty minutes late and toss the professor a starbucks drink as penance. She couldn’t come right out the gate with that kind of energy though, not as a freshman. She was self aware enough to know that would only result in making her look like a total douche.

Finally she found the book she’d been looking for. It was in one of the kitchen cabinets, and Lup huffed in annoyance at her past self when she finally spotted it. She didn’t waste anymore time though, grabbing it and shoving the thing back into her bag. With that she quickly headed towards the door, turning to look back at the dorm room for only a moment.

It was a small dorm, barely a kitchen and bathroom attached to a bedroom. The cheapest single apartment style one they had, and it was currently a fucking disaster area from her frantic search. She’d lost track of the time again, went and put her shit where it didn’t belong without remembering.

Turning away, she told herself she could fix the mess later. She definitely didn’t have the time for it now. She still had to get across campus and class had started oh, about a minute and a half ago.

Thankfully, it didn’t actually take very long for her to sprint across campus, and she’d already had the forethought to figure out where all her classes were ahead of time. She was only about five minutes late when she managed to crack the door open as quietly as she could, attempting to sneak in while causing the least amount of disturbance as possible.

It wasn’t one of those giant lecture hall classes, so she was definitely noticed. Still, it wasn’t like five people either, and the professor didn’t seem inclined to call her out on the tardiness. He met her eyes, and when Lup gave him an apologetic nod he nodded back and continued to explain what the class was about. Lup was having a hard time paying attention, immediately going to the nearest available seat and slumping down.

Once she had a moment to catch her breath Lup pulled out the textbook she spent so long looking for, and a notebook. From a quick glance around she realized that the professor had already passed out the syllabus. Instead of interrupting the class more to ask for one she opened up her notebook. She could at least look like she was trying to pay attention that way, and then grab an extra syllabus before she left.

She didn’t get very far into that plan before a stapled pack of papers was slid towards her. Next to her was some nerdy nervous looking dork, who had moved his syllabus between the two of them.

“If you wanna follow along,” he whispered, not quite meeting her eyes. Lup didn’t mind that, nodding and moving her textbook to the side so that she could get a clearer look at the paper.

“Thanks babe,” she whispered back, unable to keep from smiling a bit more at the increased look of panic on this guy's face at that. Turning towards the syllabus it seemed pretty standard. Or at least standard for what Lup imagined one would be, considering this was her first class. Still, it had a layout of the topics for the next ten weeks, along with the dates for the midterms and final, and some of the professor’s guidelines and standards and junk. Lup had honestly been pretty hyped to get this class right out of the gate. Neurological Biology. She managed to get her base bio class credit transferred over from the AP courses she took in high school.

So yeah, she’d been looking forward to this class, but it seemed that the first session was going to be kind of a snooze fest. A lot of going over what they  _ would  _ be learning instead of actually jumping right into it. It was an hour long class though, so they might jump in during the second half or something. Lup had always been impatient and hearing someone talk about the cool things they were  _ gonna _ do was nowhere near as interesting as actually doing them.

Figuring she’d start paying attention again once something worth paying attention to started happening, Lup turned to a new page in her notebook.

_ Hey bro, _

_ So, first day of class hasn’t exactly gone perfect so far. I fucking swear all I needed was a piece of toast to shove in my mouth and I would be the perfect late anime protagonist. I should have actually done that, at least then the disaster would show some signs of being self aware. _

_ But yeah, it was basically exactly what you image. Overslept, lost my books, late for my first class. The whole shebang. Figured I’d knock out all the cliches early so that I won’t have to deal with them later. _

_ Man, Ko I was excited about this class but this professor seems dry as sidewalk chalk. I was five minutes late and it’s been ten minutes since then and he won’t stop droning on. I thought people said college was exciting and the professors were all expies of Bill Nye the science guy and Miss Frizzle. Instead I’m stuck with Mike Myers as Lorne Michaels having a stroke over here. I swear he’s just getting sadder and sadder before my eyes. _

Lup paused in her writing when the dude next to her suddenly snorted. It was quiet enough thankfully that she was pretty sure no one was bothered enough to try and figure out what it was about. When she looked over he very quickly looked away again, staring straight towards the professor still droning on. His face instantly got a bit redder as Lup stared at him, and she couldn’t help but smirk a bit at that, turning away to start writing in her notebook again.

_ Well, looks like I’m gonna have to finish this one up later, sorry bro. It seems that close quarter college desks aren’t super great for privacy. _

_ Miss you, _

_ Lup. _

She signed off on the letter, not bothering the flip over to the next page afterwards. It took a little while, but she was able to tell when the guy sitting next to her finally gave in and tried to read the rest of her page. She knew that because whatever composure he’d managed to build up before then immediately dissolved, the guy basically turning into mush next to her. It was pretty damn satisfying.

They did end up getting more into the actual meat of the lesson in the second half of the class, like she hoped. The professor remained just as boring, but at least the topic was interesting, even if the first day seemed to be a pretty easy overview of the basics. Still, it was enough that Lup flipped off of the letter page and actually started taking notes for the class. The quarters here were only ten weeks long. Which would be great for classes she didn’t like, but would feel pretty fast for the ones she did.

The professor ended up calling class about fifteen minutes early for the first day, which seemed reasonable enough. Lup quickly started putting everything back into her bag, wanting to be able to go up and snatch a copy of the syllabus before the professor dipped.

“Hey, uh,” a nervous voice said, and it didn’t take a lot of brain power for Lup to realize who was talking to her. The nerdy guy from before was doing everything he could to avoid looking at her directly as he spoke. “I just, um, I wanted to- sorry. About reading your uh, notes, and stuff,” he managed to stutter out, and Lup actually snorted in laughter at that. She couldn’t tell if that made this guy more or less nervous though honestly.

“Don’t worry about it, I was just putting you on blast,” she said with a grin. The guy nodded, not looking like he was all that sure what she meant by that. She didn’t bother sticking around to elaborate though, instead giving him a grin and a wink before slinging her bag over her shoulder and turning away. “Thanks for sharing the syllabus,” she added. She could hear the guy try to stutter out something behind her, but she was already leaving.

Thankfully she managed to get down to the professor before he left. Mostly it seemed because he’d already gotten stopped by a few other students wanting to clarify this or that or get added to the class. Lup didn’t even try and talk to him, instead slipping in, snatching up one of the extra syllabuses on the desk, and quickly maneuvering back out.

Once she had that she headed outside, looking around until she managed to find an empty bench. It took a bit longer than she figured would be normal, the place busy as fuck for the first week of classes. Still, after a few minutes she found a place to sit and pulled her notebook back out. Turning to the page with her latest letter, she stayed there for a while, just staring at it. She couldn’t think of what to add, so with a sigh she tore it out of the book. Digging around in her bookbag, she found the envelope she had stuck in there earlier. It was starting to get pretty full, and Lup folded up the most recent letter and stuffed it inside with the ten or so others.

It seemed like a pretty good time to try and send it. She was running out of room in this one, and first day of class seemed like a good stopping point. Decisively she licked the envelope, pressing and sealing it afterwards. One that was done she stayed there for a good long moment, just staring at the blank envelope.

She had no address to send it to. They didn’t have last names, at least not official ones. Or at least, not one she could remember. She knew sending this letter wouldn’t actually get it to the person she needed to see it, but she’d been searching for so long now. She didn’t know where else to look, and it didn’t help that her brain liked to fizz out on her sometimes. Make her forget simple things like time or where she was or her own damn name.

Even if they didn’t actually get to him, writing these letters made her feel better. Sending them made it seem like she was at least doing  _ something. _

Pulling out a pen, across the blank side of the envelope she wrote in large handwriting ‘To: Taako~’

There was a mail room on campus. Lup had been sure to check that out pretty early on. She still had plenty of time before her next class, so she headed over. There was an outgoing mailbox there, and without any hesitation she opened it and dropped the letter inside.

She just had to keep believing that one day, one of these damn letters would actually find him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I started this one during NaNoWriMo but I was holding off on finishing a couple of my other fics before posting it. I figured now was as good a time as any to throw up the first chapter. Not sure if I'm gonna promise any sort of schedule for this one yet, but while I've got a bit of a backlog at least here's going for a tentative every two weeks or so. Might just aim to update every right thrusday, why not? 
> 
> I have a lot planned for this one folks. This is a combo blupjeans slowburn fake dating college au _and_ taako centered found family bakery au with a side of taakitz. It's a lot. Probably almost all major characters will show up eventually. 
> 
> Thanks for starting off and I hope y'all enjoy!


	2. Tentative Friendships

Taako slumped onto the couch as soon as he got home. He’d been planning on replacing this shitty old couch as soon as he got the money for it, but he’d started to grow a bit fond of the damn thing. It was always there for him. Welcoming, a constant lumpy comfort for his weary bones.

He knew working in a kitchen was going to be fucking exhausting, and he wasn’t regretting it. For this first week Ren had kept him mostly in the back, cooking and doing dishes, just like that first day. He certainly didn’t mind it, glad to be able to get away from people and simply focus on baking. Making things that tasted good, and oh boy did his shit taste good. He wasn’t in the front often enough to really see how people reacted to eating his creations, but Ren assured him that there had absolutely been an uptick in the baked goods sales since he started on.

Hopefully that meant he would be kept back there, and could spend all of his time in the kitchen and not have to interact with other people. He liked Ren so far, but he already figured he would. That was part of why he took this job, he needed to know that there would be at least one co-worker there who wouldn’t drive him up the wall. Ren was chill though, she got his sense of humor and actually trusted that Taako knew what he was talking about.

She kind of reminded him of Lup.

So he was liking the job so far, but it was still wearing him down. Today had been his last day for the week though. Ren had given him a big grin and told him to take the next two days easy, relax from a great first week. He was very much intending to take her advice and do fucking  _ nothing _ until he had to go back to work.

Or at least, he was until he ended up getting hungry about two hours later. Reluctantly he removed himself from the shitty couch where he’d rearranged himself to watch what appeared to be a Survivor rerun marathon. Taako hadn’t intended to get into it, but damn if these shows didn’t know how to build up the drama.

Looking through the fridge he groaned, grabbing the last microwavable meal out of the freezer and throwing it into the microwave. He was for sure gonna have to go to the store tomorrow. There went his precious plans of doing nothing.

_ Hey Lulu, you busy? _

_ Is there any chance you could do your best most favorite devoted loving brother a tiny favor and show up on his doorstep tomorrow morning with groceries and also maybe a pizza? Please? _

_ Yeah, didn’t think so. _

He shoved his phone back into his pocket, and a part of him was almost glad that Lup would probably never see the messages he sent her. There wasn’t anything he would actually want to hide from her, but there were still some things that didn’t cast his situation in the best light. A lot of late nights alone sending messages into a void that he couldn’t bring himself to scroll back up to look at.

After another minute the microwaved dinner beeped, and Taako poured himself a drink as he let it cool off. The one downside with working in a kitchen all day was that it tended to drain most of his cooking energy when it came to actually making himself food. He figured it would hopefully even out as he got more used to the job though. His body was still adjusting to being up and running around for eight goddamn hours a day.

If nothing else, he’d have to start making big batches of things on the days he had off that he could reheat on the days he worked. That could probably be a system that worked pretty well. He always tended to make too much food for one person anyway, and it was honestly cheaper to cook in big batches anyway.

Taako had just sat down with his food and drink, ready to get back into his now invested watch of Survivor when the doorbell rang. He didn’t bother to keep his voice down at all as he threw his head back and let out a groan of frustration. Placing his food to the side, Taako reluctantly stood back up and headed to the door. He would have ignored it entirely if he could be completely sure that it wasn’t his landlord. He had no fucking clue how often that dude stopped by though, so he figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

When he opened the door, Taako was pretty sure this guy was not his landlord. He’d never actually met his landlord, but this dude was not exactly the image he had in his mind. This dude was pretty damn large, with thick sideburns and a bright smile. That smile was currently tinged with slight nervousness, and the dude had a hand in his jacket in a way Taako did not like. He kept his own hand on the door, ready to slam it shut as fast as possible.

“Hello, you’re new here, right?” the dude asked, and Taako hesitated slightly, trying to to stare at the hand he had hidden away too noticeably.

“Yeah, sure am,” he said, and if this dude noticed his guard was up he wasn’t showing it.

“Cool, cool. My name’s Magnus, what’s yours?” he asked, and yeah, Taako did not trust this in the slightest.

“Taako,” he said, wincing afterwards when he realized he probably should have lied. "Justin. Taako Justin Bodette," he added on, the lie not sounding anywhere as believable as he would have hoped. Luckily it didn’t seem like this Magnus guy noticed, nodding quickly. He was starting to look around now, glancing down the hallways like he was expecting someone to come after him.

“Great, well just wanted to, you know, welcoming you to the building, howdy neighbor. Actually, I don’t live here, my buddy does. He’s kinda busy right now though so I thought I would just head over and-” Magnus continued to go on, and Taako started to slowly inch the door closed.

“Right, well, great to meet ya. Love to talk but I just took out dinner  _ sooo,” _ he said, moving the door more and more closed. Before he could actually shut it though Magnus protested.

“Wait! Yeah okay, sorry about this, I just have one question to ask you,” he said. Taako hesitated. He was halfway sure that this dude was going to shoot and rob him, but also if he intended to do that a closed door wasn’t going to do much. This place didn’t exactly have the best locks. He’d have to go out and buy some new ones soon.

“And what’s that?” he finally asked hesitantly.

“Are you allergic to cats?” Magnus said, the question definitely throwing Taako for a loop. He stared for a moment, it taking a few seconds for the words to sink in.

“What?” Taako ended up saying, because nope, question was not sinking in.

“Cats. You’re not allergic to them, are you?” he asked, and Taako slowly shook his head.

“No, I’m allergic to  _ peanut butter _ but I don’t see what either of those things have to do with-” he said. He was cut off when Magnus quickly took his hand out of his jacket. Before Taako could see what was happening he was shoving something into his arms and running off down the hallway.

“Sorry! It just needs a place for a few days! I promise!” Magnus shouted back. Taako barely had time to look down and see the ratty kitten now in his arms before Magnus was almost all the way down the hall. The few precious seconds it took him to realize what the fuck just happened were all the dude needed to make a quick getaway.

“Hey! What the fuck! Come back here and get your fucking cat!” he shouted after Magnus, running out into the hallway. It was pretty useless, Magnus having already gone through the doors to the stairs. Taako was left standing alone in the hallway, a little ball of fluff in his arms.

“What the  _ fuck?” _

There was no answer. After a few seconds, the cat in his arms meowed.

He could just leave it in the hallway and close the goddamn door. It wasn’t  _ his _ cat. He did not ask for this cat. If this guy thought that knocking on a random door and shoving an animal at the hapless fool inside was a good way to find a home for a pet, he was wrong. At best, he could take it to a shelter, and even that he wasn’t  _ obligated _ to do.

The kitten meowed again, and Taako groaned, still carrying the thing as he turned and headed back into his apartment. He was too fucking tired to figure this out right now. Once he was inside he shut the door behind him and put the thing down on the floor. For its part the kitten didn’t seem too terrified of people, slowly starting to explore the area. Taako let it be, going to actually eat his food.

It hadn’t been that long, his microwave meal hadn’t even gotten cold yet. The kitten had wandered over and was sniffing around the TV stand. Taako wasn’t even sure what the apartment policy on pets was.

Pulling out his phone, he took a slightly blurry picture of the cat and sent it to Lup.

_ Some fucking maniac in my apartment building just threw a cat at me. _

_ The hell am I supposed to do with this Lup? I’m too tired to take it to a shelter right now, I just got off work. _

He supposed he could always keep it for the night and take it in tomorrow. He had to go to the store tomorrow anyway. Getting out of his texts he started looking up shelters. It was a kitten, it would probably find a home pretty fast. He heard that the babies tended to get adopted a lot faster than the older ones, so he didn’t even have to feel guilty about taking it in. That was certainly how it worked for people in any case. 

The closest animal shelter turned out to be kind of a distance away. Taako would definitely have to take a bus. He groaned, extremely annoyed with this fucking hassle some asshole decided to lob at him. He swore, if he ever saw his Magnus guy again he was going to fucking slap the dude.

Taako was halfway through looking at bus schedules to try and figure out if there was one that would take him to the animal shelter and and grocery store when he heard a meow at his feet. Looking down, the kitten was staring up at him expectantly.

“What do you want?” he asked bluntly. In response, the cat meowed again. It was probably hungry, but it wasn’t like that Magnus guy had given him any food for the thing.

Grumbling, Taako stood up and headed back into his kitchen. He has some lunch meat left. He hadn’t been home as much and he tended to make himself lunch at the bakery, so he hadn’t been going through it as fast. Grabbing a paper plate, he shredded up some bits of ham and put it on the floor. He was an asshole, but he wasn’t heartless, if the cat was stuck here for the night he was at least gonna try and feed the thing. Luckily the cat seemed to get the picture pretty quick, coming over and starting to gnaw on the ham after a few cautious sniffs.

While he was at it, Taako searched around in the piles of everything he’d yet to unpack, eventually finding a shallow box. Filling it up with paper towels, he hoped it would work well enough as a litter box for the night. If the cat was even box trained. God, it probably wasn’t.

Pulling his phone back out, he took a few more pictures of the cat as she ate, going and sitting by her after a moment. She was a scraggly little thing, all blotchy orange with pale green eyes. Taako pulled the plate away from her slightly, and she immediately went after it. Snorting, he started going through the pictures he’d taken, sending the best ones over to Lup.

_ Look at this little shit. Eating me out of house and home. Remind you of anyone? _

_ I’m sure as fuck not gonna keep her, but I wonder if the people at the shelter would think ‘Lulu’ would be a good fit. It’s definitely better than another orange cat named Garfield, that’s for sure. _

Sighing, he put his phone down and turned back to the cat. The little thing had ate almost all of the ham by now. Taako was tempted to grab it some more, it seemed hungry. He figured it would be better to wait though. She was small, if she’d been starving before he didn’t want to shock her system by giving her too much too fast. Instead he got a shallow bowl and filled it with water, putting it down next to the plate of ham.

“Well, what do you think? You like Lulu?” he asked, mostly to say something to fill the otherwise silence. The cat had finished eating by now, taking a curious sniff of the water before coming over to him, clearly a little cautious. After a few sniffs it looked up and meowed at him again. She didn’t run off when Taako reached out to pet her, even when he gently knocked her over. She actually seemed to get a kick out of it, standing back up and butting against his hand until he did it again. Taako snorted, starting to pet the kitten some more.

_ Hey Lup, I’m naming my new cat after you. K thxs bye. _

——

Lup’s other classes ended up going a bit better than her first. They weren’t quite as interesting, still a lot of going over the syllabuses and all that junk. They were both just general eds though, things she figured she should get out of the way as fast as possible. It was probably because of that they both ended up letting out super early, only staying for as long as it took to go over the syllabus and saying that they’d start diving into the meat of the classes next time.

That was fine with Lup. She wasn’t super invested in either class, and being let out early meant that she was able to get back to her dorm early. That was definitely a good thing, because it took quite a while to clean up the disaster she’d left it in.

It took the rest of the day, and some of the next, mainly because she was tired after classes. She had been warned about not putting all of her classes in one day, but this way she was off Tuesdays and Thursdays completely. She figured keeping her schedule open like that would be helpful if she decided to try and get a job around campus. She also couldn't complain about having the extra free time. Sure, her Mondays, Wednesdays, and some of Friday sucked, but four days of the week with no classes what so ever felt worth it to her.

When Wednesday rolled around Lup made sure to actually have everything in order for her neurological biology class, showing up several minutes early in fact. There were a lot more seats to choose from this time, and she didn’t feel the need to go straight for the first seat she saw so she could get out of the way as quick as possible. Instead she stood at the door for a moment, scanning the area and trying to figure out where a good place would be.

It didn’t take long for her to catch sight of that nerd she’d sat next to last time. He was a bit closer to the front now, and she kind of wondered if he’d gotten there a bit late last time too. Either way, Lup typically liked to sit near the front of the class if she could help it (she kept meaning to get to the eye doctor some day. She was pretty sure she needed glasses, but it was never bad enough to shell out the cash for. Maybe now she could fork over some of her student loans for some).

It was pretty clear the nerd hadn’t noticed her coming until she pulled out the chair next to him and sat down. She wouldn’t say he looked  _ scared _ of her, but definitely a lot more nervous than he’d been a second ago.

“Hey, I didn’t really get a chance to introduce myself last time. My name’s Lup,” she said, because it wouldn’t hurt to at least try and strike up a conversation before class. She had no desire to go through college as some sort of mysterious loner. It seemed to take this guy by surprise, but for his credit he recovered quickly enough.

“Oh, yeah that’s- that’s fine. It’s Barry, or well I’m Barry, is what I mean,” he said, and it seemed like he was stumbling over his words a little less this time. Which that wasn’t exactly saying much, but it was still something for sure.

“Nice to meet ya Barry. So, this class for your major, or you just taking it for fun, or what?” she asked.

“Yes. Well uh, yeah it’s for my major, and for fun too I guess? I really like this kind of stuff, how like, the brain and body interact, and all that stuff,” he said, and Lup grinned a little at that. Yeah, she’d definitely pegged this dude right as a huge fucking nerd.

“Cool, same here on the major part. This your first year?” she asked, and Barry shook his head.

“Second actually, I was mostly focusing on GEs last year,” he said, and that made sense. That was Lup’s plan for the most part, but she figured she  _ had _ to sprinkle some interesting classes in there as well or else she’d go insane. 

“Nice, Monday was my first goddamn day, if it wasn’t obvious,” she said. Barry quickly tried to insist that it wasn’t, but she waved off his stuttered assurance. “Anyway, if you’ve been around this school for a while maybe you can give me some pointers later. Like how to avoid professors like  _ that _ in the future,” she continued, lowering her voice during that last part and gesturing as their professor made his way into the room. Barry snorted at that, quickly covering his mouth to muffle the rest of his laugh.

“Uh, yeah, I guess I could try and help out, where I can,” Barry said. With that their professor started talking in his droning voice, and Lup actually was interested in this class, so she turned to pay attention.

God, it really was fucking hard as shit to not get bored with this dude. He was basically just reading notes right off the powerpoint. She heard that some classes in college would be like this, that you had to do most of the learning yourself, but she wasn’t super thrilled about it being the class that  _ actually had _ interesting material.

After about thirty minutes of class she couldn’t quite keep her focus anymore. Flipping to a new page of her notebook, she started writing another letter to Taako. The classroom was a little dim, since the professor has a powerpoint up this time, so she wasn’t sure if Barry would be able to read what she was writing down or not.

_ Sup Koko, _

_ I’m writing you in class because I’m legit going to fall asleep if I don’t do something. Why does my one interesting class have to have a teacher made out of dry wall? Yeah, it’s the same one from before, he has not improved at all on day two. In fact he might have even gotten worse. _

_ In other slightly related news the guy I’m sitting next to is a real nerd alert. Might be able to give me some useful tips on how to avoid professors like this in the future though, we’ll see if he manages to prove himself yet. _

_Did you know the average human brain has about 86 billion neurons? The average elf brain has 97 billion. The average elephant brain has_ ** _257_** **_fucking billion_** _neurons Taako! How the hell aren’t elephants ruling the world? How the fuck did my professor manage to make all of this information sound like he was reading the goddamn phone book? The mysteries never cease!_

_ I should probably get back to taking notes that aren’t in letter form to you. Especially since I gotta mail these. Just like, wanted to let you know that the college thing is going well. Not super thrilling yet, but ya know. College. Whodathunkit. _

_ Hope you’re doing good too bro, _

_ Lup. _

The rest of class went a little bit faster than the beginning, mainly because Lup was determined to pull as much interest out of this class as possible. Even still, she was a little bit relieved when it finally came to an end. She had a forty minute break between this class and her next one, which she figured was enough time to grab some lunch without having to feel too rushed.

“Hey, um,” Barry said, and the lights were back on in the classroom now. When Lup looked at him he definitely looked real flustered, which probably meant he’d definitely been able to read her notebook in the dim light.

“What’s up?” she asked with a grin, and it looked like Barry immediately regretted saying anything. Yeah okay, Lup was definitely gonna have at least a little bit of fun in this class, despite their professor’s best attempt at sucking all the joy out of the room with a single word.

“Is um, do you- uh, do you write letters often?” Barry asked after a moment. It kind of sounded like he’d panicked and picked a question at random, but Lup kind of wished he’d found a different one. She could feel the smile on her face dip some, but he hoped it wasn’t too noticeable.

“Yeah. My brother lives pretty far away,” she said simply. This wasn’t something she got into with people, let alone people she just met. For his part Barry seemed to at least notice her discomfort, quickly nodding.

“Oh, he uh, he go to another college or something?” he asked, and it felt kind of like he was offering her an excuse, and so she took it, nodding before slinging her bag over her shoulder.

“Something like that,” she said. Lup hated the sudden tense air, even though she was sure it was almost entirely of her own imagination. Barry just seemed a little nervous and awkward, which from what she could tell was his pretty typical MO. Even still, she tried to give him a smile before turning to leave. “Catch ya later Barold,” she said.

“Yeah it’s- nice talking to you,” he called after her. She just nodded, not slowing down any. The commons wasn’t far, and it wasn’t quite the lunch rush yet so the lines were pretty small as she went in. It seemed like she actually managed to time the break between her classes well enough to have time for lunch.

As she ate she dug through her bag, pulling the notebook from her neurological biology class out again and flipping to her latest letter. She already signed off on it, but instead of making a new one she just kept adding onto the page.

_ Fuck I miss you bro. I wish you were here, it’s the fucking worst. Do you have any idea how unfair this is? We should be doing this shit together. I want to make fun of my professors with you and tell you about the nervous dork in my class and make you help me clean up my dorm but I can’t because I can’t fucking find you! Why the hell can’t I find you? _

_ I’m never going to forgive them for taking you. _

Lup forced herself to stop writing. If she kept going she’d just end up tearing up, and that was the last thing she wanted to do before having to head to class.

Most of the time she could deal with it. Most of the time she could stubbornly cling to the idea that she was going to get Taako back, it was just a matter of time.

After ten years though, time was seeming like a pretty big matter. She was so fucking tired of waiting for time to bring them together again.

But it didn’t seem like she had any other options.

And right now, time was insisting that she pack her stuff back up and head off to her next class. So that’s what she did, quickly choking back down the pain. There wasn’t anything else she could do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i know what i said about updating every right thursday, but i got bored so there is now another chapter a few days early instead. I'm real glad people are liking the premise of this fic so far, especially considering that the premise is just kinda Everywhere. i'm having fun with it so far though and i hope others are too. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed!


	3. Attachments

Keeping the cat was probably a bad idea. Taako had just started a new job, he didn’t have the time for a cat. He guessed he could technically afford it now, but did he really want that to be where all his hard earned money went?

Taako told himself he’d give that Magnus dude the few days. Hell, he’d be real generous and give him the whole week. That was only because if he wasn’t going to the shelter today, he would have to wait until his next day off from work. He did not want to deal with all of that after an eight hour shift.

Even if he wasn’t going to the shelter today though he still needed to get to the store. Thankfully, there was a pet store in the same shopping center as the grocery store. He figured he should just head in there first, to get it out of the way. Maybe if he saw how expensive everything was it would make him immediately rethink any ideas he had for keeping the cat and he’d come to his senses.

It was pretty expensive like he expected, but the crazy thing was Taako  _ could _ actually afford it now. He didn’t go for the real pricey shit, but he wasn’t scrambling for the cheapest things he could find either. He was just getting the bare minimum too. Food, some actual litter, a water bowl, a thing to scoop the litter with, and one cute little feather toy that was all bright orange and yellow. That last one maybe wasn’t super essential, but a three dollar cat toy wasn’t going to be the thing to break him at the end of the month.

Taako didn’t spend too long at the actual grocery store. He wasn’t cooking as much at home, and plus it was going to be an ordeal to try and carry a huge amount of groceries up to his apartment. From what he'd seen it seemed that the elevator going up was in a constant state of disrepair and maintenance. Even when it was supposedly 'working' he did not trust like that. He’d also have to get a car or something as soon as he could afford it, so that he wasn’t stuck lugging everything on the bus all the time. He was not a particularly strong elf, carrying the drinks and shit got tiring.

As soon as he walked into his apartment the tiny cat started yelling at him. Taako hadn’t had much ham left this morning, so he hadn’t been able to give her a lot of food before running out. Dumping his bags down on the counter, he started looking through them for the cat food.

“Yeah yeah, I hear ya. Hold up for like five seconds,” he said when the kitten continued to meow as loud as its little body could manage. It didn’t take very long for Taako to actually find the food, and he quickly dumped some out into the plate he’d had the ham on. He’d made sure to get kitten food. He wasn’t sure how old the cat actually was, it might have just been smaller from being on the the streets, he couldn’t be sure. Still, it seemed like the safest bet.

Immediately the cat was under his feet and chomping at the food. Taako quickly filled up the water bowl, and then switched out the paper towels for actual litter. It was kind of hard to tell if it had used the box yet, but he didn’t see anything on any other part of his house, so that was pretty good so far.

With that done Taako put away the rest of the food he’d gotten himself. He also did not have much for breakfast before he left, so he got himself a bowl of cereal as soon as everything was away and went to go sit on the couch. The kitten seemed just about done with her food by then, coming and inspecting Taako’s feet as he ate.

Once he was finished his cereal Taako leaned down, picking the kitten up and holding it up over his head. It didn’t particularly squirm, instead seeming to accept its fate as Taako stared up at it critically.

“You don’t even realize how lucky you are, do you Lulu?” he said, aware he was talking to a cat but also aware that no one was around to judge him. It wasn’t like he didn’t get enough practice in talking to things that couldn’t respond anyway. “That dude coulda dropped you off at any old apartment, but you got  _ Taako. _ He’s gonna have to do a real good job convincing me how leaving a cat with a total stranger was a good idea if he wants you back,” he continued.

The kitten had finally started to squirm now, so Taako put her down, watching as she clumsily tried to walk across his lap.

“Seriously, I could’ve been a complete jackass. He doesn’t know. I could have thrown you right back onto the streets, and then where would you be? Probably fucking dead, and that guy could look the rest of his goddamn life if he wanted and never find you,” Taako said, and for some reason it was starting to get a little hard to talk, so he stopped. This was stupid, it was just a fucking cat.

Laying down, Taako pulled out his phone. The kitten climbed on top of him and seemed to be making a comfortable spot for herself on his stomach.

_ Sometimes I wonder if you’re even still alive, you know that? _

_ Which is stupid, because of course you are. If I managed then there’s no way you didn’t, you were always the stronger one out of the two of us. _

_ Still, a guy can’t help but wonder sometimes. _

_ They never found a body. They told me they never found a body, and like fuck did I trust them so I looked for myself. I couldn’t find you either, so you have to still be out there, right? _

Taako forced himself to stop texting before he went and made himself pissed off or upset or something. Normally he tried not to think about it too hard. He almost never talked to ‘Lup’ about it. It felt too much like he was talking to a ghost when he did that. Like all of this was pretend and she was really gone forever.

It was true though, they hadn’t ever found a body. Despite how much Taako tried not to think about that day he could remember it clearly.

Five years, and he’d finally gotten a lead on where Lup was. It didn’t matter that it was three states away and he was only fifteen, he left immediately. He thought they could figure it out together, once he had Lup again they could leave and make it on their own. They always talked about doing that, and he’d spent the whole two week trip planning out how they were going to do it.

He’d been so fucking excited.

The place was a pile of ashes when he finally got there. An accident, something falling behind a stove or a candle knocking over or some shit. There were a few conflicting stories, and Taako didn’t really give a shit about what had caused it. It had happened, and he had to deal with it. 

Taako spent a week going through every inch of that area, trying to find something,  _ anything.  _ His hands and under his nails and every inch of his clothes had been stained black for a while as he pushed through burned ashes and wood. There were things found between the remains, little bits that hadn’t gotten burned. Taako had been tempted to take some of the stuff, but he could never find anything that for sure had belonged to Lup. He never found any distinct sign of her at all.

Or no, he had ended up taking one thing. That had been more for practicality at the time than any sort of sentimental value. He had still never managed to get rid of it though, so he guessed some sentiment had managed to build up over time.

The people there had assured him that no one had died in the fire, but a lot of records had been lost. They didn’t know  _ where _ his sister was now. A few kids had run off during the fire, and they had yet to find them. She might have been one of them.

He was sure she was. He couldn’t image her not taking the opportunity to get the fuck out of there if she had it. It was just really bad timing. He’d been  _ on his way. _

It was around that time that people started to realize the kid who’d spent the last week tearing through ruins alone looking for a sister who’d already been in an orphanage probably didn’t have a family. He had to bounce pretty quick after that. He wasn’t about to get tangled up in all of that bullshit again, especially when it became clear that no one was actually interested in helping him find Lup.

Taako had started petting the cat on his chest absently by this point, the thing having curled up into a comfy little ball. He guessed he was stuck here for a while, but he couldn’t really complain about that.

The rest of the day was mostly spent chilling out at home. He knew he needed to start unpacking a lot of his shit, but he figured he could use the lazy rest day. He’d get things put away slowly but surely. Or at least, that’s what he was telling himself.

The next day he had to go back into work, and he made sure to leave Lulu with enough food to last her through the day. Ren was all cheerful smiles as he came in, already having a lot of the front set up. It still felt way too fucking early, but the good thing about working here was that there was a pretty good supply of coffee he could take for himself.

“Morning Taako, how were your days off?” she asked, and Taako shrugged as he tied on his apron.

“Alright, found a cat,” he said. Ren immediately looked interested at that, so Taako pulled out his phone, flipping to one of the cuter pictures he’d managed to get and held it up for her to see. An even larger smile flashed across Ren’s face at that, and she moved closer to get a better look.

“Oh! Look at the little baby. Are you keeping it?” she asked, and Taako shrugged, letting Ren look for a moment longer before putting the phone back into his pocket.

“I dunno. Some maniac knocked on my door, asked if I was allergic to cats and then shoved the thing at me before running away. She’s not been too terrible yet though, so we’ll see,” he said. Ren gave him a befuddled look at that explanation, and Taako couldn’t blame her for that. It sounded fucking insane, because it kind of was.

“That’s real odd. Have you thought of a name for her yet?” she asked, and Taako nodded.

“Her name’s Lulu,” he said, and Ren smiled at that.

“Yeah, you’re keeping her,” she said, and Taako pouted. He’d started to head into the back to begin baking, and Ren followed after him. It looked like she needed to grab some more stuff for the front anyway.

“And what the hell makes you so sure of that?” he asked. He wasn’t even sure if he was gonna keep the fuzzball yet, so he had no idea how Ren could claim to know with so much certainty.

“You don’t name animals you’re not gonna keep. That never works out, you get too attached,” she said. Taako rolled his eyes at that, even though he wasn’t even sure he could say that she was wrong.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Taako ain’t never been attached to anything in his life. Ain’t no strings holding this elf down,” he said. Ren raised an eyebrow at that, looking more amused than anything.

“Really, there’s nothing?” she asked, her voice still light. Taako shook his head, trying to keep the joking atmosphere to himself as well, and not too sure how well he was managing it. In his pocket, his hand was clutching his phone probably a little harder than it needed to.

“Nothing.”

——

Lup woke up in a panic, on the floor and struggling to breathe.

There were a few terrifying seconds where she didn’t know where she was. She was wrapped up and couldn’t move she was  _ trapped _ and it was too hot and-

“Taako!” she shouted, finally managing to rip the blanket off of her. Slowly her dark vision kicked in, and as she took in her surroundings it started coming back to her. She was in her dorm. She was at college, it was safe. She could breathe.

It didn’t take long to piece together what had happened. She had a nightmare, got tangled up in her blankets and ended up falling off the bed. The fall had probably knocked her awake, but not out of the dream fully. It took her brain a few seconds to catch up out of the panic.

Knocking the rest of the blanket off of her, Lup got up off the floor. Grabbing her phone, she grimaced at the time. 2:46am. She didn’t have class tomorrow, which was good because it would have sucked if she needed to get up in the morning.

Looking at her bed, Lup figured she could try to get right back to sleep. She was still exhausted, but she knew how this game work. She could never pass out again after an episode like that, at least not without doing something first.

Getting dressed, Lup decided that she hadn’t really gotten a chance to explore much of her campus yet.

Heading out of the dorm, she made sure that she had her keys and a knife on her. She wasn’t dumb enough to go wandering around in the middle of the night alone unarmed. This college was in a pretty safe area, but she did not trust like that in the least.

Her campus wasn’t a super big party college, so there weren’t a lot of big things open this late at night. It was a little chilly as she stepped outside, but she found herself appreciating the cold. It helped clear her mind, focus her up some as she started walking between the dorm buildings.

It was nice. Lup liked being around people. In fact she kind of needed it. She didn’t do all that great when left completely alone for too long. She was already kind of starting to regret getting the single dorm, even if it meant she didn’t have to worry about anyone shaming her for the messes she’d leave sometimes. That was probably part of the reason she was wandering around out here now. Even if there wasn’t anyone else out at this time of night, she could see lights on inside of the occasional room. Could hear the bugs and see cars driving off occasionally in the distance. Could see proof that she wasn’t completely alone, that there were people out there she could get to if she needed to.

It wasn’t hard to find a place to sit now. Heading over to the little outdoor seating area around the commons Lup sat at one of the tables. She hadn’t brought much with her, but she had brought her notebook. She kind of didn’t go anywhere without the thing.

Flipping it open, she started another letter.

_ Hey Taako, _

_ I had another nightmare. I mean, I kinda figured they’d get a little worse once I moved to the dorms. Sleeping in a new place and all that, you know how it can fuck with you. Or at least, I’m assuming you know how it can fuck with your sleep, you were never that great at sleeping either. _

_ I can’t even remember what happened really. I just felt like I couldn’t breathe, and that’s never a good time. Decided to go out and get some fresh air for a bit. It’s a pretty nice night out, not too cold but still crisp and clear. _

_ Fucking hell, I can’t believe I’m writing to you about the  _ **_weather._ ** _ Sorry, it’s late as shit and my brain isn’t coming up with a lot of good and interesting tales to give you. I just needed to talk to someone, and well you’re not here, but I guess this is the next best thing, right? _

Lup paused, wanting to write more but not sure what to put. She hadn’t been lying about her brain not coming up with anything interesting. Lup spent a while staring down at the page, starting to doodle in the dim light of the street lamp above when words continued to fail her. Just stupid stuff, like her boring biology professor droning on and Barry with his head all shaded in to show him blushing and the clock tower out across the field. It ended up being pretty relaxing.

“Excuse me?” a voice called, and Lup quickly turned towards it, hand already on her pocket with the knife. The voice and the person it came from were still a good distance away, and from the look of it approaching pretty cautiously. Whoever they was came close enough that Lup could start to see her more clearly in the street light, but still keeping a clear space between them.

It was a young woman, probably another student, maybe only a few years older than Lup at the most. She had dark skin and white hair pulled up into a short, poofy ponytail, and was wearing a cardigan over a pretty simple dress. Overall, she didn’t look like someone Lup would immediately qualify as a threat. In fact, it was kind of the opposite. Lup was suddenly looking around, kind of worried for this girl’s safety out here alone so late at night.

“Sorry if I startled you. I just wanted to make sure you were alright,” she said, and Lup nodded, quickly closing her notebook.

“Oh yeah no, I’m good. Cha’ girl can take care of herself,” she said, and this girl nodded. “Are  _ you _ alright though? I’ve got like, four knives on me, if anyone wants to try something they can damn well try, but what about you?” she asked, and the other woman chuckled a little at that.

“I’m fine, thank you. I usually work the late shift at the library,” she said, pointing off in the direction of the campus library. Lup hadn’t gotten a chance to spend much time in there yet, but it was definitely a thing on her to do list. “There isn’t typically a lot of people out here during my walk back, so when I saw you sitting off on your own I wanted to make sure nothing happened,” she continued. It sounded genuine enough, and despite the skepticism that had built up in Lup over the years, she found herself believing her.

“Thanks. My name’s Lup, it’s my first semester here actually. Is the library seriously open this late?” she asked, and she could see this woman smiling a bit in the darkness as she nodded.

“I’m Lucretia, it’s nice to meet you. And yes, it’s open until 2:30am every week day, and twenty four hours during midterms and finals week,” she said, and the second part had a tone to her voice of a pitch she’d given to students all the time. Even still Lup found herself grinning at that.

“Oh hell yeah, you know I’m gonna take advantage of that,” she said.

“Please do, they make sure we justify staying open so late, and it’s easier if we have more people coming in regularly,” Lucretia said. That wasn’t much of a surprise to Lup, but before she could say as such a yawn broke out.

“Aw shit, it’s late. You got the time?” she asked. Lucretia nodded, quickly checking her phone.

“A little past three. You don’t have class in the morning I hope?” she asked, and Lup shook her head, standing up and stretching her arms up over her head.

“Oh fuck no, but I should probably still head back soon. I just came out here to clear my head a bit,” she said, and Lucretia nodded at that.

“Don’t forget your notebook,” she said, pointing back towards the table. Immediately Lup whipped around, and she wouldn’t have left it, but the thought panicked her enough to grab it up as quick as possible.

“Shit, yeah thanks. Would not want to lose this,” she said, holding the notebook close.

“Do you write?” Lucretia asked, and she sounded the most excited Lup had heard during this conversation as she asked the question. She felt a little bad having to shake her head.

“No, not really,” she said, not elaborating any further than that. The incident with Barry asking about her brother had been a little over a week ago now, but some part of it still stung. She’d rather not revisit the subject again so soon with another stranger. Luckily Lucretia didn’t seem all that inclined to pry, instead just nodding.

“Oh, that’s fine,” she said, and Lup did a quick check over of the table again to make sure she had everything. “I should probably get back as well, are you sure you’ll be alright heading back to your dorm on your own?” Lucretia asked, and Lup nodded.

“Yeah, I’m good,” she said, giving Lucretia a big grin and patting the pocket she had her knife in. Luckily Lucretia looked more amused by that than anything, and Lup decided she liked this girl.

“Alright then, have a good rest of your night Lup,” Lucretia said, and Lup nodded, staring to head off in the direction of her dorm. It didn’t seem to be in the same direction the other woman was heading off in.

“Thanks, you too, stay safe,” she called back. With that it didn’t actually take long to get back to her dorm. Lup was confident in her ability to defend herself, but she still didn’t let herself head out too far. She was  _ confident,  _ not an idiot. 

She was actually pretty damn tired by the time Lup got back, and was very relieved to change back into some pajamas and flop into bed. Getting out had been a good idea, especially since she got to talk to someone for a bit. She’d have to start going by the library more often, especially now that she knew how fucking late it stayed open too.

Lup ended up falling asleep almost as soon as she was back in bed, and she didn’t have anymore nightmares that night. She woke up a lot later than she tended to, but she didn’t have class today anyway.

She  _ was _ starving though, and too tired from the interrupted sleep to want to cook herself anything. Heading to the commons, it was a little too late for breakfast, so Lup decided to go with a chicken wrap instead.

As she was looking for a place to eat, a grin spread over her face at a familiar sight. Immediately she headed over to the table, setting her tray down with a loud clatter and startling the poor dude.

“Barry, how’s it going?” she asked, trying not to look too obviously amused as he tried to fight down a cough from her scaring him in the middle of eating. It was probably mean, but she was pretty sure she genuinely liked Barry so far. Or at the very least, she genuinely liked messing with him.

“Oh, it’s- hi Lup. I’m uh, I’m good,” he said after lightly punching his chest a few times. “How’re you doing today?” he asked, still sounding a little hesitant. Lup quickly finished chewing before she answered.

“Good, didn’t get much sleep last night,” she said.

“Is everything okay?” Barry asked, and when Lup looked at him he actually looked pretty concerned. It kind of took her off guard, she didn’t think he’d care that much. She was used to not sleeping, and she thought that was like, a  _ thing _ in college. You just didn’t sleep sometimes. Although she guessed it was still pretty early in the semester, maybe losing sleep this early was a bad sign for a freshman.

“Yeah no, I’m good,” she said, suddenly wanting to change the subject. “Do you know a Lucretia? Works in the library?” she asked. The question seemed to surprise Barry, but he nodded after a moment.

“Uh, yeah actually. How come?” he asked, and Lup shrugged, taking another bite of her food.

“No reason really. I met her last night, she seems cool,” she said, and Barry nodded. “Also, you both seem like huge nerds so I figured you probably knew each other,” she added. Barry’s face went a very satisfying shade of red at that.

“Well, ya know, since you know both of us now, that like, probably makes you a nerd, too,” he stuttered out after a moment, and immediately Lup started grinning widely at that.

“Barry! You  _ can _ sass back,” she said excitedly, and maybe a little too loudly. Immediately a few people from nearby tables looked over, and Barry sunk down further in his chair. That only caused Lup to snicker even more.

Damn, she was really starting to like this place.

Or at least, like it as much as she could with a hole in the place her heart should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it's obvious by now that this fic is going to be exactly 50% fluff and 50% angst, balanced as all things should be. I'm having a lot of fun with it so far and we still got a pretty decent sized backlog, so expect pretty regular update every one to two weeks or so for a little while. 
> 
> Don't have much to say yet other than thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!


	4. Not Alone

Taako hated that Ren was right.

It wasn’t that he was getting attached though, or at least that’s what he was telling himself. It was simply easier to take care of the thing than go through the hassle of getting it to a shelter.

Plus, it was kind of nice coming home to an apartment that wasn’t totally empty. Having another living being around helped, even though Taako swore he was fine to start out with. At the very least, having something else alive around certainly didn’t hurt any, and Taako could use the distraction sometimes.

Between work and Lulu, he honestly had a lot of distractions nowadays. That was a good thing though, shit tended not to go too great when he had too much time to be wrapped up in his own thoughts.

It was a week later, he had off work again and was planning on spending as much of his day relaxing as possible. He had given up on the idea of spending  _ all _ of his day relaxing, because he did kind of desperately needed to do laundry. That could wait until later though. At the moment he was sitting at the rickety kitchen table, writing down ideas for food he could make in bulk this weekend. He wanted to try out the whole ‘cook a bunch of shit and defrost it over the week’ idea he’d had.

Lulu was on the table, trying to attack his pencil as he wrote. It did not lend to very legible handwriting, but no one needed to be able to understand it but Taako, so it would work.

Taako might have gotten distracted, dragging the pencil along the table for Lulu to chase when suddenly there was a knock at the door. There was no way to be totally sure, but he grabbed the cat and carried her with him to the door when he went to answer. He was entirely unsurprised to see Magnus there, despite not seeing hide nor hair of the guy since he’d shoved the cat at him a week ago.

“Oh good, you still have her!” Magnus said, sounding excited but not actually all that surprised. He actually started to reach out for the cat, and immediately Taako was taking a step back out of reach. That seemed to catch this guy off guard, looking at Taako with mild confusion now.

“Uh, yeah I still got her my dude. What the fuck’s wrong with you? What if I was a jackass, or a total fucking idiot? I coulda killed this cat. Don’t just throw animals at strangers you know nothing about! You don’t  _ deserve _ this cat back, I’m keeping this cat,” he snapped, holding Lulu close to him. Magnus stood there for a moment, staring at him as he processed everything Taako had said.

“Oh, I mean, you can keep her if you want her. That actually solves my problem,” he said, and Taako just made a small ‘humpf’ sound at that. “And uh, I don’t typically go throwing animals at strangers. Ren said you were cool though and just moved in all alone, so I figured it would be alright,” he added, and  _ that _ certainly got Taako’s attention.

“You know Ren? Did she know about this?” he asked. She seemed pretty confused when Taako had explained what had happened to her, but that could have been a trick. He wouldn’t know what the fuck the point would be, other than apparently manipulating him into adopting a cat, but he’d heard of weirder shit.

“Oh yeah, and uh, I don’t think so? I forgot to tell her I gave you the cat actually, I think,” Magnus said, and Taako eased up a little at that. Okay, so this wasn’t apparently a conspiracy to get him a pet. “So, you’re really gonna keep her?” Magnus asked, sounding excited and a little hopeful now. Taako was immediately defensive, but he couldn’t exactly say he wasn’t, especially after that rant.

“Uh, yeah I fucking guess I am,” he grumbled. The kitten had started wriggling around in his arms now, apparently tired of being held. Taako didn’t put it down though, not with the door open. He didn’t want her trying to run out and sprinting off down the hall. Magnus reached out, and this time Taako didn’t move out of his reach, reluctantly letting the dude pet her some.

“Awesome, I was really worried about finding her a home,” he said, and Taako nodded.

“Cool, well, I should get going,” he said, starting to step back into his apartment again. Magnus didn’t seem bothered by this, nodding as well and giving Lulu one last pat on the head.

“Sure thing, talk to you later Taako,” he said. Taako didn’t bother responding, just shutting the door and letting Lulu down. Heading over to the kitchen table Taako sat back down, the kitten only coming and sniffing his foot for a moment before rushing off again. He guessed he really was stuck with the thing at this point. It’d look stupid if he went and gave her to a shelter now.

Taako figured he should probably be more annoyed by that than he actually was.

Heading into work the next day, Taako had started to get into a bit of a routine now. He went in, had a small chat with Ren, and then went in the back to start busting out his baked creations. He and Ren weren’t the only ones who worked there, but Taako didn’t spend much time around the other employees, and they were typically the only two opening.

Today his schedule got knocked off pretty much immediately. As he was tying on his apron Ren started talking.

“So, I think I’m gonna have you working more of the front today. Figured it’s about time I make sure you know how to use the register and everything,” she said. Taako wasn’t able to keep the immediate frown off his face, but he tried to recover fast enough that hopefully Ren wouldn’t notice.

“Yeah, for sure but uh, shouldn’t we have someone baking and junk? We can’t both be in the front,” he said, hoping he would be able to worm his way out of this. He kind of doubted it though, Ren did not seem the type to overlook something that blatant. Taako was disappointed but not surprised when she quickly waved away that concern.

“Oh don’t worry, I’m actually gonna be cooking in the back. I asked Kravitz if he could come in early and show you how to handle things up front,” she said, and Taako immediately raised an eyebrow at that. He should probably know that name, and he was smart enough to deduce it was most likely one of the co-workers he’d been completely ignoring up until now. Great, that was splendid. More people to have to interact with.

He didn’t mind interacting with Ren because he decided he liked Ren. He was already not too thrilled with this new guy for virtue of throwing off his routine.

“Cool, uh, which one is that again? I’m not too great with names and faces,” Taako said, which was kind of a lie. It wasn’t that he wasn’t good at them, he just didn’t care enough to bother most of the time. Ren nodded though, not seeming put off by that any.

“No worries, I’m pretty sure you haven’t actually met him yet. He usually works nights,” she said, and okay. At least Taako wouldn’t immediately look like an uncaring jackass. He didn’t mind all that much if he did, but still, he kind of liked this job. He didn’t want to fuck it up the first time they asked him to do something even vaguely inconvenient for him.

It was just about then when the door behind them opened, the little bell above it dinging as someone entered. They still had another ten minutes or so before they were open for customers, so Taako figured this was probably Kravitz.

“Sorry, I forgot how much traffic there is in the morning,” he said, and Taako turned to look this guy over.

Which, alright. Dude was certainly a piece of eye candy. Almost as sweet as the things he baked in here. At the very least Taako would have something nice to look at while stuck up here having to actually deal with people.

“Don’t worry about it Kravitz, you’re good. This is Taako, I don’t think y’all have met yet,” Ren said, and Kravitz had moved to join them behind the counter now, shrugging off his coat and stashing it under the counter.

“Right, it’s a pleasure to meet you Taako,” Kravitz said, putting out a hand. Taako quickly shook it, nodding in polite agreement.

“Likewise my dude,” he said. Kravitz started throwing an apron on as well, and Ren moved past the two of them towards the back, clapping Taako on the shoulder as she did.

“I need to go get started on everything. I’m sure you’ll do great Taako, Kravitz, you know the training procedures,” she said. Kravitz gave her a quick affirmative, and then Ren was in the back and the two of them were out here alone. Taako was pretty thankful when Kravitz immediately started to go into a training spiel, not bothering with any sort of small talk or anything like that. He got the feeling this was something he’d done before, which was probably why Ren specifically had him come in to cover this.

“Alright, so have you ever used a cash register before?” Kravitz asked, moving towards the register. Taako followed along, watching over his shoulder.

“I’ve opened cash registers and taken money out of them yes,” Taako said, which definitely got a little bit of a look from Kravitz. Like he couldn’t tell if that was supposed to be a joke or his weird way of saying yes.

“Okay, uh, let me rephrase that. Have you operated a cash register for a job before?” he asked.

“Oh, that. Nope,” Taako said. Kravitz chuckled a little, but it sounded kind of forced and unsure. That didn’t bother Taako too much, he wasn’t super invested in this guy liking him or anything. Honestly as long as his little ‘joke’ didn’t get back to Ren and made her worried about him, he was chill with whatever this dude thought.

He started running Taako through the basics of using the register then, and it honestly didn’t seem that difficult to pick up. They didn’t have a lot of time to actually get it all down before the store opened and customers started to trickle in. Still, Taako stayed up at the front and watched as Kravitz worked, until eventually he had Taako try it with his supervision a few times.

Taako was pretty sure he still preferred being in the back, not having to put on a fake smile and customer service voice as he asked people what they would like and watched them judge him as he took over half a second to actually key in their order. It wasn’t bone crushingly terrible yet, but that was probably only because it was the first day, and Kravitz seemed pretty willing to jump in whenever he got stuck. Taako appreciated that more than he was willing to let on.

By the time it was his break though Taako actually felt like he mostly understood how taking the orders and everything worked. Sure, it seemed like Ren had it set up to be pretty self explanatory, but that didn’t mean there still wasn’t a chance for him to fuck it up.

Heading into the break room in the back, Taako appreciated the fact that he was mostly left alone on his breaks. Sure, it was probably because Ren and now Kravitz were busy still watching the rest of the store, but it was nice to have a good thirty minutes by himself.

Pulling out his phone, he started texting Lup as he began eating his lunch.

_ Hey Lulu. _

_ Work’s going pretty chill so far, I have the hottest fucking dude training me like you wouldn’t believe. They’re making sure I know how to do stuff up front too, but hopefully I’ll be able to still spend most of my time in the back cooking. That’s where cha’ boy belongs after all. In the kitchen. _

_ Might be some good things about being up front though. I kinda hate it but you do see a lot more people up there. Lots of people also get to see me too. _

_ I’m sure we still look pretty damn similar, right? Can’t change those good twin genetics. Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of these days someone will recognize me. _

_ Maybe they’ll actually recognize you. _

_ That would sure as fuck make everything a hell of a lot simpler, wouldn’t it? _

——

They were a couple of weeks into the quarter now, and Lup felt like she was starting to get her footing with all this college shit. She was definitely doing pretty well in her classes, which was the most important part. The rest was going alright too though. She’d started hanging out in the library more often. She felt like she could pretty accurately call both Lucretia and Barry friends by this point.

There was only one real problem.

She couldn’t fucking sleep for the life of her.

Getting the single dorm had definitely been a mistake. She knew she didn’t do well completely alone, but she figured that in the dorms there would still be enough noise from the people around her to calm her nerves. She just happened to get unlucky with her placement though it seemed. She was at the end of the hall on the bottom floor. The dorm directly next to her seemed pretty vacant, she’d only seen the person in there a handful of times. She didn’t know who lived above her, but apparently they were pretty quiet too.

Honestly, most people would kill for her dorm. She got a feeling ‘a bunch of super noisy neighbors’ wasn’t high on most people’s priority list.

The silence felt fucking suffocating at times though. Lup spent as much time as possible out of her dorm. A lot of that was in the library, to the point where Lucretia suggested she put in an application to work there as well. It was a pretty good idea, and it certainly wasn’t like Lup couldn’t use the extra cash, so she did.

There hadn’t been any word back on that yet, but Luce did warn her that it might be a little while before they hire anyone new. Still, it wasn’t a bad thing to have on the back burner.

When Lup wasn’t in the library she was typically hanging out on other parts of the campus. She had explored the biology department pretty thoroughly by this point, as well as the student union building. There were a bunch of fast food like places in there, and areas to sit and a bunch of spots for clubs and such.

She should probably join some clubs. She didn’t want to overstretch herself too much right out of the gate, but she felt like she could use the distractions.

It wasn’t that they happened every night. If they did, she’d be doing a lot worse than she actually was. Still, Lup was super thankful for bunching up all her classes to three days a week. She needed those extra days to catch up on the sleep she missed on the nights where the nightmares did end up coming.

The worst part was that she usually couldn’t even describe them all that well afterwards. She’d just wake up, terrified and panicked, feeling like she couldn’t breathe and screaming out for Taako. She was kind of surprised no one had complained about the screaming yet, but then again the dorm immediately next to her was apparently empty 90% of the time anyway.

On those nights she usually ended up spending a few hours outside. She was well aware that wasn’t the safest habit, but it was also one she had for years now, and she hadn’t died yet.

Really though, the nightmares she wasn't able to remember weren’t as bad as the ones where she could. Those were always of the same night. Always showed her over and over again the last time she’d seen her brother.

Tonight was unfortunately one of the nights with the dream she could remember.

It started the same as it always did, in bed sick. It was night, and she knew she’d been asleep when it had actually happened, but in the dream she was always laying there waiting. Aware that something was going to happen and not able to get up or move to change it.

She was only able to move when Taako started shouting. Exhausted and drained from a flu, only getting a moment to take in the scene. Her brother trying to fight against a man holding him, trying to take him away somewhere. Trying to separate them by force this time, instead of all of the ‘gentle’ attempts at persuading them, insisting that they’d both get good, happy families if they weren’t so insistent on staying together.

She screamed, struggling to get untangled from the blankets to get to her brother. She didn’t quite manage it, another person coming up and grabbing her. Holding her in place as they took her brother away. She fucking fought against them, kicking and scratching and biting. She definitely ended up drawing some blood. It didn’t amount to anything, panic gripping her chest harder and harder as Taako was ripped from the room.

Lup woke up screaming on the floor, tearing blankets away from her in a fury. It took several long seconds in the quiet, dark room for her to come back to her senses. To take in the fact that her brother wasn’t here, that he hadn’t been in ten years. It was just another dream.

“Fuck,” she whispered under her breath, her throat feeling raw from screaming and her face wet. God, she barely ever ended up crying during these dreams. Trying to situate herself, she winced as she started untangling the blanket and saw the huge tear she’d put in it. She couldn’t deal with that right now, throwing it off to the side to be a problem for later.

Now that she was no longer screaming, the dorm room was absolutely silent.

She needed to get out of here.

Pulling out her phone, she really didn’t know if wandering around alone would be much help right now. She needed someone to talk to. She needed someone who would  _ talk back. _ Checking the time, it was already 3:32am. Lucretia would have gotten off work by now and be home in bed. She worked so late, Lup hated the idea of immediately waking her back up and making her deal with her drama.

There was only one other person on campus she would consider a friend.

Not giving herself a chance to second guess it, she went to Barry’s number and hit call. There were several long moments where it continued to ring, and right when Lup was sure it was going to go to voicemail she heard a click.

“Hello?” Barry’s voice came through, muffled and sleepy and confused. Just hearing someone else’s voice gave Lup way more relief that she was willing to admit.

“You live on campus right?” she asked, feeling bad about all this already. She should have just let Barry sleep and deal with all of this herself, but she’d already made the call.

“Yeah? Uh, what’s going- who’s this?” he asked, and god yeah he was really fucking out of it. Lup barely managed to resist the urge to hang up and pretend this never happened. The only reason she didn’t was because Barry would be able to see she called on his phone in the morning, and she was sure he would at least try and talk to her about it later.

“It’s Lup. I’m- look, sorry, you can go back to sleep, see you later,” she said, going to hang up. It was good enough that she got to hear another person’s voice for a bit, she could bring herself back together now. Before she could actually hang up though she heard Barry protesting.

“Wait, hey wait a minute, Lup? Are you still there? Is everything okay?” Barry asked, sounding a bit more awake and genuinely concerned now. There were a few long seconds where Lup didn’t say anything, highly considering hanging up and dealing with the consequences later.

She really didn’t want to be alone right now though.

“Can I crash at your dorm tonight?” she finally asked. It didn’t answer Barry’s questions, at least not in a direct way. It seemed to be enough for Barry though, who didn’t press her on it.

“Of course,” he said, quickly going to give Lup his room number and the building he was in. He even offered to come meet her and walk her over, sounding worried about Lup wandering around late at night. She insisted it was fine though, and as soon as she hung up she threw on a coat and some shoes, not bothering to change out of her pajamas. She was planning on sleeping there anyway.

Despite that, she still made sure to grab her notebook on the way out. She really did not like going anywhere without it. Especially not after dreams like that. 

It didn’t take long to get to Barry’s dorm, it wasn’t that far from her own really. Just two buildings over, near the top of the first flight of stairs. Even still, she hesitated before knocking on the door.

This wasn’t something she did. She’d never had anyone to turn to other than Taako before. It felt wrong in a way. She never _ needed _ anyone besides Taako before (that wasn’t true, she desperately needed people but there was never anyone there and that was why she was in the state she was now. A fucking disaster who couldn’t stand to spend another single goddamn night alone anymore).

Knocking on the door, it swung open almost immediately, it pretty clear that Barry had been waiting up for her. He looked like he’d just fallen out of bed, but Lup couldn’t imagine that she looked much better.

“Lup, are you- is everything okay?” Barry asked, stepping aside for her to come in. She moved in, nodding and clutching the notebook a bit tighter to her chest than she needed to.

“Yeah, yeah everything’s chill Barold, no worries. I just…” she trailed off, not sure how much to say. This wasn’t something she  _ talked _ about with other people. She only ever told Taako about it, really. “I just needed to not be alone tonight,” she said finally. She expected Barry to start questioning her on that, but instead he simply nodded, an understanding look on his face.

“Of course,” he said, like it was that simple. Maybe it was. Maybe this was a thing friends just accepted, she’d have no way of knowing. “Do you want something to drink? If you’re tired I can set up the couch,” he added, and Lup shook her head.

“Just the couch is fine,” she said. Barry nodded, disappearing into the other room and coming back a moment later with a blanket and pillow.

“Are you sure you don’t need anything else?” he asked, still looking like he had no idea what he was supposed to do. Lup couldn’t really blame him, she wasn’t all that sure either, and she was the one to come over here. Even still she nodded, because this was enough. This was already so much fucking better than being alone.

“Yeah, I’m good. I think I’m just gonna pass out,” she said. It was obvious that Barry was pretty hesitant about all of this, but he nodded none the less.

“Alright, just, I’m right in here if you need anything, alright?” he said, and Lup nodded. There was a pretty thin wall between the couch she’d be sleeping on and Barry’s bedroom. It would have to be enough, to know that someone else was right there if she yelled.

“Got it,” she said.

“And… if you ever need to like… talk about anything Lup, I’m always- I’m around,” he said, and a small smile tugged at her lips at that as she nodded. She kind of doubted she’d take him up on that offer, at least not anytime soon, but knowing it was there, being able to tell that it was completely genuine. Somehow that helped so much more than she expected.

“Thanks Barry,” she said, hoping she somehow managed to come across as genuine as he did. With that he headed back into his room, and Lup was relieved to see him leave the door open the slightest crack. Moving to the couch, she adjusted the pillow and blanket, lying down in as comfortable a position as possible. It wasn’t the comfiest couch, since it was just the one that came with the dorm. Lup couldn’t complain though. If she strained her ears she could manage to hear Barry breathing in the room next door, a small constant reminder that she wasn’t alone.

Pulling out her notebook, she started a quick letter.

_ Taako, _

_ I’m not alone right now. I still don’t really know how to be a person without my heart, but I’m not alone. _

_ I hope you’re not alone right now too. _

_ I miss you, _

_ Lup _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this update took a bit longer than two weeks, mostly because i got distracted whoops. still gonna try and be updating this one regularly enough, because it's still a lot of fun. we finally have a kravitz and also even more backstory 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed!


	5. Someday

After that first day of training Taako didn’t spend all of his time in the back baking anymore. He guessed it made sense, he had ended up with quite a bit of downtime during the latter half of the day, once the big rush in the morning was over. He still ended up spending most mornings there, but after his break Ren started having him up at the front more often.

He didn’t end up seeing Kravitz very often. Now that Taako knew who he was though he did notice him tending to come in right as Taako was clocking out some days. He was even usually polite enough to say hello when he caught sight of Taako. It wasn’t an absolutely terrible level of interaction with a person. In fact Taako almost liked it.

Sometimes a hot guy at his work would smile at him and say hi, and Taako had no obligation to continue the interaction in any sort of meaningful way. It was pretty much perfect as far as he was concerned.

All in all, he didn’t actually hate this as much as he expected to. Sure, customer service definitely wasn’t his fucking passion, but this bakery was definitely a bit off the beaten track. It wasn’t that a lot of people didn’t come here, and Ren had said that they’d been getting even more customers since Taako had started. It just seemed that a lot of the customers were pretty regular and had their shit together enough that it wasn’t torture to interact with them. If anything, a lot of the time Taako was the one who had to take a moment to figure out what the fuck he was doing.

Thankfully Ren was actually a decent boss and didn’t expect him to know everything without being told it and other bullshit like that. Taako barely even thought of her as a boss sometimes, since she was so chill. He wasn’t sure if he’d go so far as to think of her as a friend yet, but there were few people he’d give that title at all.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure there was anyone he’d call a friend.

Taako tried not to think about any of that though, instead focusing on his work. So far today had been pretty smooth. He got to spend most of the morning in the back, taking care of the baking for the day. The one good thing about getting to come up to the front now as well was that he got to see people’s reactions to eating his food.

He knew people liked his shit, but there was something so satisfying about actually being able to see it. To be able to watch and pinpoint exactly what part put it over the edge, and try to remember that to adjust and add on later.

He needed to ask Ren if he was allowed to mix up the recipes some. Or better yet, test out some of his own. He would fucking kill to be able to sell some of his own creations. He was just waiting for the right time to bring up something like that as an option. He would though. Just later.

There were other things that Taako noticed with being up at the front more often now. It definitely took a few weeks, but slowly he started figuring out some people who were regulars. Turned out fucking Magnus was a regular, which explained some shit.

The first time the dude came in while Taako was out from, the elf had pointed accusingly at him, hissing out a ‘you!' Of course, Magnus just smiled and bounded up to the counter, seeming excited to see Taako. He also had a dog with him, which was apparently allowed because Ren didn’t say anything about it.

“Oh, you know Magnus?” Ren asked, also not seeming very perturbed by Taako’s reaction. Taako nodded, looking at the dude with distrust, like he expected him to shove the dog at him too. He almost did.

“He’s the one who threw Lulu at me,” he said. There was a moment where Ren took that in, and the she burst out laughing. Magnus just went on about how Lulu was a real cute name for a cat. After that, Magnus ended up coming in every so often, usually grabbing whatever cookie or brownie caught his eye first. Taako wasn’t ever gonna be that person who memorized people’s orders, but he did have a general idea for some. At the very least, he could tell which people were gonna know exactly what they wanted and which people would have to spend a couple minutes staring up at the menu or down in the display cases before finally coming up with something.

This kid was definitely in the second category.

“Any day now pumpkin,” he said, tapping his fingers on the counter. Thankfully they didn’t have a line at the moment. It was actually slow enough that Ren had trusted him up at the front by himself while she took some inventory in the back. The kid quickly looked up, sheepish surprise on his face.

“Oh, I’m sorry sir,” he said, his eyes quickly scanning the case again. “Um, which would you recommend sir? I think I’m having a case of choice paralysis,” he added, and Taako snorted at that.

“Fancy way of saying you’re like eight and want to shove every sweet thing in front of you into your mouth immediately,” Taako said, which earned him a pout from the kid.

“I’m ten, but I don’t really see what my age has to do with liking sweet things anyway," he said. Taako shrugged, already starting to move through the display cases. If the kid wanted his choice, he might as well, if only to get this interaction over with sooner.

“Fair enough, you got any allergies by the way?” he asked. When the kid shook his head Taako grabbed the cranberry pecan brownies he’d been going for, wrapping it up in wax paper before putting it on the counter. “In that case, I’d say give this one a shot,” he added. The kid took it, taking a cautious bite. Immediately his eyes lit up and he started digging through his pocket, probably to pay for the brownie.

“You want a drink with that?” Taako asked as he started to ring him up. The kid nodding, taking a moment to swallow before speaking.

“Yes please. Um,” he started looking behind Taako at the little mini fridge they had full of the bottled drinks. “Just a chocolate milk,” he said. Taako nodded, pulling out one of the milk bottles and tossing it over the counter at the kid. He managed to catch it, which was kind of surprising. Taako made a mental note not to actually do that again, if the kid missed and it burst or something he’d probably be in trouble.

“Thank you sir!” the kid said again after paying.

“Mhmm,” Taako hummed back. With that the kid took his drink and snack and headed off to one of the small tables they had set up around the front of the shop, pulling out a book from the bag over his shoulder and settling in. Taako honestly didn’t put much thought into the interaction or the kid.

It wasn’t hard to notice when in the next week or so, the brat quickly jumped from ‘first time there with no idea what to get’ to ‘regular showing up nearly every goddamn day at exactly the same time.' He still hadn’t gotten any better at picking what to eat though, most of the time opting to let Taako pick instead. He guessed it wasn’t the most annoying thing a customer could do, so Taako let it slide.

It just sort of became a part of his routine.

Angus hadn’t shown up today though. Taako wasn’t sure when he’d ended up learning the kid’s name or why he managed to remember it. Or at least, remember it for the most part, he definitely got it wrong sometimes. Still, he didn’t show up every day, which was probably good for his health. Taako made some real fucking good food, but he wouldn’t call it healthy food, not by a long shot. Also, he figured his parents or whatever probably didn’t give him money to go off buying baked goods on the daily either.

Today had been pretty slow actually. It was nearing the end of his shift now, and he’d already done all the baking he’d needed for the day so he was out front again. Except there weren’t any customers at the moment either. Taako figured he could spend the time cleaning or something, but nothing looked immediately disastrous and he figured he could use the extra little break. Had to be ready in case a customer did come in.

Which meant he was currently on his phone, sending an update to Lup.

_ Lup work is slow and I’m bored as shit. _

_ The brat didn’t even come in today, he’s at least good for pretending I’m interested in whatever he ends up rambling about. I think it’s mostly some book he’s been reading? I don’t actually pay attention so fuck if I know.  _

_ Lulu’s getting bigger. She also took to the litter box pretty fast, thank fuck. I’ll try and remember to send you another picture of her when I get home. _

“Hey Taako,” Ren’s voice knocked him out of his thoughts. Looking up from his phone, thankfully the bakery was still pretty empty. “Can I ask you something?” she said, and Taako shrugged.

“Shoot,” he said, and he figured this wasn’t something about work. If it was work related she wouldn’t have felt the need to preface it with ‘can I ask you something.’

“Who is it that you’re always texting?” she asked, and Taako couldn’t help the slight flinch at that, quickly shoving his phone back into his pocket.

“Shit, sorry. I can do it off the clock, I get it,” he said quickly, but Ren was immediately shaking her head, looking apologetic.

“Oh no, I don’t mean like that. Well, yeah, make sure you aren’t ignoring a customer or anything, but I don’t mind if it’s dead like this and you gotta talk to somebody. I was just curious,” she said, and that was somewhat reassuring. At least he knew now he didn’t have to completely sneak away if he needed to use his phone for five minutes. He didn’t  _ think _ Ren was that kind of boss, but it was nice to have confirmation.

That just left her actual question then.

There were a few long moments where Taako wasn’t sure what to say. He could lie, his first instinct was to lie. He kind of actually liked Ren though, and a part of him felt like she would be able to see through it if he tried to completely bullshit her.

In the end he decided on a half truth instead.

“My sister, she moved pretty far away a little while ago,” he said. It wasn’t quite true, but it wasn’t quite a lie either. He was texting Lup, and she had left a long time ago. Ren looked both surprised and excited by that answer.

“Oh, I had no idea you had a sister. You’ll have to introduce us whenever she’s in town,” she said, and Taako grinned a bit at that. It was a nice idea, and one he’d even had before.

“For sure, you actually remind me of her some. I think you guys would get along,” he said, and he tried to ignore the way his voice got a bit more genuine than he meant at the end there. He hoped Ren wouldn’t notice, but from the soft smile on her face he was pretty sure she did.

“Thanks Taako, if she’s anything like you I’m sure we would,” she said, and Taako nodded a bit at that.

“Yeah well, we’re twins, so definitely a lot alike,” he said. Thankfully Ren didn’t press him too much more on Lup after that. They ended up getting interrupted by a customer coming in finally anyway, which Taako was pretty thankful for. By the time they left the topic had been dropped, and he didn’t make any move to open it back up again.

Even still, the next time he was alone Taako pulled out his phone again, sending another message to Lup.

_ I gotta introduce you to my boss whenever I see you again. She’s actually pretty cool, I think you would like her. _

_ God, Lup it’s been ten years. I don’t know what you fucking like anymore. _

_ Would you still even like me if you knew me? _

There was no answer, and Taako stopped thinking about that question.

——

Lup woke up without any idea of where she was.

She was on a couch, but it wasn’t her couch. It was a dorm, but it wasn’t her dorm. It was a little off kilter, arranged in the opposite way from her own. There were books out she didn’t recognize, and dishes left all over the counter in the nearby kitchen that she didn’t own.

She could hear someone else moving around the dorm.

Panic was running through her veins, and without thinking she grabbed the closest thing she could use as a weapon, which happened to be a large textbook. Moving as quietly as possible, she got up off the couch and hid against the wall, behind the corner where she could hear someone else walking around. Her eyes stayed focused on the ground, and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. It wasn’t long before she saw a shadow moving down the hallway.

The second they rounded the corner she swung the textbook, catching them right in the face.

And she watched in horror as Barry immediately stumbled back, falling to the floor. The events of the previous night decided to come back to her in a rush at that exact moment, and Lup dropped the textbook.

_ “Oh my god I’m so fucking sorry!”  _ she shouted, falling to her knees and moving close to try and make sure he was alright. He was holding his face, and it definitely looked like his nose was bleeding.

“It’s okay, I’m okay,” he insisted, his voice a little more nasally than normal. “Oh damn, wow you’re uh- you’re _ strong,”  _ he continued, a little dazed which was more than fair. Looking him over, Lup was just real glad he didn’t have his glasses on at the moment so she hadn’t gotten the chance to smash them into his face.

“I’m sorry! Shit,  _ shit! _ I panicked, I woke up and I didn’t- do you have a first aid kit?” she asked. Barry nodded, still holding his bleeding nose and pointing towards the bathroom. Immediately Lup was back on her feet, running and looking through the bathroom. Thankfully it didn’t take long to find it under the sink, and she ran back, kneeling down besides Barry again. “Let me see your nose,” she said, trying to move his hand away.

“Lup, it’s fine. I swear it’s- ouch,” he said, cutting himself off when he must’ve pressed against his nose too hard trying to keep her from seeing it.

“Barold J Bluejeans, let me see your face or I swear to fuck I will smack you again,” she said. That seemed to get him to listen, slowly lowering his hand down.

Actually getting a look at the damage Lup started to calm down a little bit. It didn’t look like she’d actually broken anything, thank god. It was definitely going to bruise something fierce though. Barry actually stayed still long enough for Lup to clean up the blood off his face, even when he kept insisting that he could do it himself. Once it was done he just had to hold a wad of tissues up under his nose until the bleeding stopped completely.

At that point they had moved to the kitchen, because it had better lighting than the hallway. Now they were both sitting there, Barry holding tissues up to his nose and Lup putting away the rest of the first aid kit.

This was fucking terrible.

“I’m…  _ really  _ sorry,” she said again. It felt like there was no way to apologize too many times to the friend who let her sleep in his dorm at 3am out of the blue with no questions asked that she immediately attacked in the morning.

“It’s alright Lup, you didn’t mean it,” Barry said, and then he hesitated slightly, and Lup could see his brain working. “You uh, you  _ didn’t _ mean it, right?” he asked, and Lup immediately shook her head.

“No! Of course not, god I can’t believe I actually fucking did that,” she said, hiding her face in her hands. There wasn’t a lot of shit that could make Lup embarrassed, just as a person in general. Apparently attacking one of her new friends in a memory fucky induced panic was one of those things that managed it.

Barry was quiet for a moment, and when Lup chanced looking up at him again he was inspecting the paper towel he’d been holding up to his nose, putting it back after a moment. Apparently he was still bleeding a little.

“Hey Lup? I uh, I swear I don’t want you to feel pressured to like, talk about anything you don’t want to. I just… are you sure everything’s okay? You seemed…  _ really _ upset when you came here last night, and then uh, this morning happened. I just wanna be sure you’re alright,” he said, looking real fucking earnest and also fucking stupid as his face had started to swell up a little.

“You should probably replace that with ice soon,” she said. There was an obvious hint of disappointment on his face, but he hid it quick enough, getting up and heading to the freezer. From the look of it he’d almost stopped bleeding completely now, getting an icepack to hold to his face instead.

It was silent for a moment, and then Lup sighed.

“I kinda… lose myself sometimes. I just suddenly won’t know where I am, or how I got there, and I usually end up freaking out. I lose time a lot too, it’s like I black out and it’s suddenly a day later and I don’t remember anything,” she explained. It was weird, Lup wasn’t sure if she’d ever actually explained it to anyone before.

“Oh,” Barry said, and it was hard to read judgment on a single word. When Lup glanced up at him though, he wasn’t looking at her like she was insane like she’d been afraid of. He looked a little surprised sure, but that could have been from the fact that she’d actually told him anything at all.

“So yeah, I woke up and uh, didn’t know where I was. When I heard you moving around in the other room I just sort of acted without thinking,” she added.

“That makes sense,” Barry said, and Lup gave him a very skeptical look at that. It didn’t even sound like he was faking it or being sarcastic either.

_ “Does it?” _ she asked, because it all sounded pretty crazy to her, and she was the one who fucking lived it. Barry just nodded though, having to adjust the ice on his stupid smushed face before speaking.

“Yeah, I mean, if I woke up in some strange house I didn’t recognize with no idea how I got there, and I heard someone moving around in another room? I’d probably freak out too. I uh, I can’t say for sure if I’d go straight to attacking that person or if I’d just like, try and run away before they saw me, but it makes sense that you’d want to defend yourself,” he said. Lup still wasn’t sure how he wasn’t mad at her about this, but somehow he seemed to roll with every punch she gave him, both literally and figuratively.

“I guess when you put it like that,” she said, and Barry nodded. It was quiet for a moment, and Lup couldn’t help but still feel a twinge of guilt every time she looked at Barry’s face.

Okay, she needed to fix that right now.

“Do you have class today?” she asked suddenly. The question seemed to take Barry off guard, and she could see the few seconds where he had to remember what day it was.

“Not until two,” he said, and Lup nodded decisively until that. Glancing at the clock over the oven, it was only a little past 9am. That gave them plenty of time.

“Excellent. You keep your ass right there while I make us some fucking killer breakfast,” she said, getting up and starting to move around the kitchen, trying to get a feel for what she had to work with. She couldn’t say she was too surprised when Barry immediately got up and started to protest.

“Lup that’s not- please, you don’t have to-” he said, but Lup immediately spun around. She had a spatula in her hand and it swung just close enough to make him nervous.

“Barold, I almost broke your adorable stupid face this morning, let me apologize with food,” she said. Instead of actually answering Barry simply nodded, looking a little flustered as he went and sat back down. Lup just grinned wider, going to finish checking out the rest of the kitchen. “Thank you.”

“Uh,” Barry said after a moment, sounding very hesitant still.

“Hmm?” Lup hummed in response, already digging through cabinets.

“Is it cool if I go grab my glasses now? I’m kinda getting a headache here,” he said, and Lup couldn’t help it, bursting out laughing. This whole situation made no goddamn sense, neither of them had any idea what they were doing.

“Yes, fucking, of course my dude,” she said. Thankfully Barry’s grin looked more earnest than nervous when he got up to go get his glasses.

There ended up not being a lot to work with in the food department, which wasn’t exactly surprising. Barry didn’t really seem like someone who cooked often, and this was a college dorm. Stereotypically the places were pretty slim pickings. Still, she managed to get some pretty mean omelettes after a bit, thankfully Barry was at least competent enough to have some eggs around.

“Why don’t you try that on,” she said, sliding one of the plates towards Barry. He nodded, taking the icepack off, and after a moment, going and putting it back into the freezer. It probably was a little melted by now, and it would be difficult to eat while holding it to his face.

She tried not to watch too expectantly as Barry took his first bite. It was kind of hard not to though, it’d been forever since she’d gotten the chance to cook for anyone. She hadn’t realized how much she missed it. She knew she should try and do it more often, it was something she loved after all.

It just always felt wrong. Trying to work in a kitchen alone.

“Oh damn, this is- this is amazing Lup,” Barry said after taking a bite, and Lup grinned at the praise, finally starting on her own.

“Hell yeah it is,” she agreed. It seemed like some of the weird tension from before was gone now as they ate, or at the very least Lup was feeling a little less bad about smashing Barry’s face in.

“Do you cook often?” he asked after a moment, seeming mostly like he was just trying to keep a conversation going.

“Trying to see how much you can mooch off this natural talent huh?” she joked. Barry quickly started to sputter, but Lup waved him off and continued. She wasn’t gonna tease him too bad for it, considering she’d already beat the shit out of him unintentionally this morning. “And uh, not really. I need to get back into it, but my brother’s actually the big cook in our family,” she said.

There was a lump in her throat, a worry she couldn’t even name as she tried to be as casual as possible as she talked about Taako. She didn’t bring up her brother with other people if she could help it. There was something terrifying about it, but she couldn’t even bring herself to think about it long enough to know what it was that scared her.

Except she did know. She was afraid they would ask questions. She was afraid they’d poke holes, realize he wasn’t here anymore. Insist that he was not ever going to come back. That maybe he wasn’t ever there in the first place. That maybe she was just making the whole thing up.

“Your brother cooks better than this?” Barry asked though, disbelief in his voice. Not at her brother, just at his cooking.

“Oh yeah, like you wouldn’t believe,” she said. Barry still looked a little skeptical, but he seemed content to take her word for it. With that they continued to eat, and it was nice. Hanging out with Barry was genuinely  _ nice. _

Lup still ended up apologizing again as she left. His face was definitely a little puffy and there was a bruise forming right on and around his nose. He kept insisting it was fine though, even going so far as to insist she could come back anytime, if she ever needed to not be alone again.

Lup only went back to her dorm to throw some clothes on. As soon as she was alone though she pulled out her notebook, beginning another letter to Taako.

_ Hey bro, _

_ Whenever we meet up I gotta introduce you to Barry. You won’t fucking believe this nerd. I am not even exaggerating when I say I smashed his face in and he invited me back over. I could pour soup in his lap and I’m pretty sure he would apologize to me. _

_ But yeah, it was actually really nice. Scarily nice? I had a dream last night. About that night. Barry let me come over and didn’t ask me shit or anything. I did end up freaking out in the morning and clocked him with a textbook, but he was surprisingly chill about the whole thing. _

_ I think you would really like him. _

_ I hope you guys get to meet soon. _

_ Love you, _

_ Lup _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slowly introducing many characters, chances are everyone is gonna be in this fic at some point. also barry is a disaster and i had a lot of fun with the lup section of this chapter because they're both bad at this. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed


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